The pinan katas had more than one influence in their creation. Kusanku is an obvious one. It is said that channan is another kata that was an influence on their creation, but that kata has been lost. Apparently some people claim to have "found" it. It's possible someone still knows it somewhere, outside the orthodox styles, like that shotokan guy who wrote that book.

"Itosu Sensei turned to the students and said show us a kata. The kata that they performed was very similar to the Channan Kata that I knew, but there were some differences also. Upon asking the student what the kata was, he replied, "It is Pinan no Kata." The students left shortly after that, upon which I turned to Itosu Sensei and said, "I learned a kata called Channan, but the kata that those students just performed now was different. What is going on?" Itosu Sensei replied, "Yes, the kata is slightly different, but the kata that you just saw is the kata that I have decided upon. The students all told me that the name Pinan is better, so I went along with the opinions of the young people."

that is an excerpt from an article by Choki Motobu from 1934 that I found online.

I think Itosu created the pinan kata by taking techniques from various older kata and making them into shorter or easier kata to teach to the school children. Maybe channan had a large inlfuence, since Motobu said it looked kind of like channan, but the students didn't say which pinan kata they performed. I'm sure the kata have undergone many changes since then, since Itosu reformed them during his life probably more than once.

Off the top of my head, I know there are techniques from Kusanku in all the pinan kata. There are also techniques from Passai and Chinto, and possibly Gojushiho.

We have some pretty good 2nd hand info that there was once a kata called "Channan" that greatly looked like the Pinan.

We know this because a converstaion was recorded with a former student of Itosu that not only knew the Channan but when he asked Itosu what kata his current students were doing---it looked very much like the Channan he was taught--Itosu said that it was Pinan something and that he changed the name to one that "young people" thought was best.

Anyones guess as to exactly what that really means.

Then again the Pinan share many things in coommen with Kusanku.

For all we know Channan was a less complex "pre" kata to Kusanku, you know a kata that shared many of the same techniques but not quite as hard--to give the student training time before they take on Kusanku.

I kinda doubt that Kusanku was "cut up" to make either the Channan or Pinan kata.

We know that (at least a case can be made) for the Channan to pre-date the Pinan kata.

And its highly unlikely that they would "cut up" Kusanku twice and get the same sort of pattern both times.

I think is more likely that Channan was an extent pre-kata to Kusanku--and there is no way to figure out if IT was a "cut up" version or not--it may well have been.That was changed to become the Pinan kata (or at least some of them)

Since both kata would have served the same purpose of introducing techniques used in Kusanku, they would have kinda served the same purpose.

There is also the problem of just which Pinan the Channan kata look like--unlikely that the Channan was as long as all the Pinan kata put togather.

Some 2nd hand info indicates that Itsou only fully created 1 or 2 of the Pinan and that the other are the Channan.

Also some folks that think that the Channan kata itself had a Channan 1 and Channan 2 etc designation.That it was in itself a group of kata much like the Pinan.

No-one really know--buts its fun to research and speculate none the less.

Thats my own deeply devauled 2 cents on it.

Don't know if that helps or not.

Please share what you find out---seriously.

Edited by cxt (11/30/0511:02 AM)

_________________________
I did battle with ignorance today.......and ignorance won.
Huey.

Quote:that is an excerpt from an article by Choki Motobu from 1934 that I found online.

Could you please post the url to this article?

furthermore, thank you for your nice reply to this thread. Pity that this doesn't get us further, only some nice info Not to blame you! This is just a difficult subject, since the pinan and channan come from a period in wich karate was practised in secrecy and by word of mouth.

It is said by most people that the Heians/Pinans are broken down from Kanku-Dai/Kushanku. Everybody seems to be 100% percent sure.

But when I read a book of Hironori Ohtsuka (wado-ryu founder) I find this: "Pinan kata and Kushanku share so much simmilarities that Pinan may have been derived from this kata". (by heart btw, so sentence maybe bit different from the book, it's downstrairs.. to lazy to get it )

Mr. Ohtsuka also says about pinan: "in okinawa there is something similar called Chan-an, but I don't know for sure".

Since this was a true master of budo I start wondering, why is a man like him saying that he is not for sure, and plenty of people on internet and starring in MA instructional videos say that they do know for sure

I think true answers on this topic will be hard to find.

-->Some 2nd hand info indicates that Itsou only fully created 1 or 2 of the Pinan and that the other are the Channan.

Who is this 2nd hand info? This would be very interesting to know if it could be rightious info or not. Since this is a total different approach to the pinan-channan story.

-->Since both kata would have served the same purpose of introducing techniques used in Kusanku, they would have kinda served the same purpose.

yes, and they 'stories' about Mr. Motobu and Mr. Itosu lead us to a closer answer on this one. After reading all this and my own knowlegde. I think we must look for the answer in the event written in that book spoken about. Indeed the cut up of Kushanku is very likely. But this event happening twice and have nearly the same result if far from possible. I must get my hands on the channan book and videos. Although I doubt that this will be the "truth" it leads us at least a bit closer.

Why all the interest in the Channan Kata? Most already do some Kata related to Channan even though they do not know it. Channan, which is Chinese for valley, is Matsumura Sokons version of a Shaolin form that originated in the Northern Shaolin Temple. This is how the Kata recieved its name. I would have thought that the group would have been more interested in Matsumura's Baihe kata to be honest.

The question was about where the pinan kata come from. They were created by Itosu, so that's where we would look first for answers. What did he know? Who taught him? If Matsumura knew a kata called channan and taught it to Itosu, that would be one explanation. None of the research articles seem to have come across that explanation, though. There's still a lot of confusion.Paul Hart, what style do you practice that has preserved the channan kata of Matsumura? If you know the kata, does it appear to be very similar to any/all of the pinan katas? Is the channan you speak of known by another name in a different style?

Matsumura's Bai He kata would be very interesting to see. I only know of Hakutsuru. However, that might be a topic for another thread. If you have specific reference material about who/where Matsumura learned Bai He Quan from, and what the Chinese names of the Quan he knew/passsed down, that would be interesting to read.

I am writing a book about alot of this information. I will tell you that it is difficult as to much information will spawn a bunch of reading Judan's and I would like to shed some light so I don't want to hold a lot back. No, the Channan has some things that may cross over to the Pinan but nothing exactly, of course a punch is a punch. So you would be interested in Baihe, what about huquan, another "lost" Okinawan kata with Chinese origins. There is so much to Okinawa Te that has not been released.